Apple will conceal the front-facing camera under the screen of its 2027 iPhone, a Chinese leaker said today, corroborating reports that Apple's 20th anniversary iPhone will have no visible cutouts in the display.
Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station said Apple's development of under-screen camera technology was progressing as planned for adoption in 2027, one year after it will reportedly debut under-screen Face ID technology on iPhone 18 Pro models.
Several Android phones already feature under-display selfie cameras, but image quality typically suffers due to the lens being behind display layers. Apple has likely resisted adoption for this reason, but the company has reportedly been working on its own solution for some time, and we could see it debut as soon as next year in Apple's first foldable iPhone.
According to an April 2024 report, LG Innotek – one of Apple's Korean suppliers – has been developing under-display cameras that leave no visible hole when inactive. These systems use a "freeform optic" multiple lens array designed to reduce image distortion and improve brightness, compensating for the light loss that typically occurs when a camera sits behind a display.
Whether technology related to LG Innotek's work will be used in the foldable iPhone is unclear. Regardless, JP Morgan recently reported that Apple's first foldable will have an industry-first 24-megapixel camera under the inner display. Under-screen cameras typically use 4 or 8 megapixels, suggesting Apple has achieved a breakthrough in greatly improving light transmittance and image quality compared to previous designs.
Apple is reportedly working on a radical redesign for the 20th anniversary iPhone that could feature a completely bezel-less display that curves around all four edges of the device. There is a strong expectation that Apple will skip "iPhone 19" nomenclature. For the 10th anniversary of the iPhone in 2017, Apple skipped the "iPhone 9" and simply launched the iPhone X (roman numeral for 10) alongside the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
